ATLANTA – Georgia’s decades-old certificate of need (CON) law governing hospitals and health-care services has never achieved its intended purpose and should be reformed or scrapped altogether, witnesses told a state Senate study committee Tuesday.
Congress passed the CON law in 1979 requiring applicants wishing to build a new hospital or provide new medical services to demonstrate a need in their community. But the federal law was repealed in 1986 because it wasn’t meeting its goal of reducing the costs of health care by avoiding duplication, Thomas Stratmann, a senior research fellow and economics professor at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, testified as the Senate Study Committee on Certificate of Need Reform opening hearings on the CON issue.
The Gwinnett Daily Post is a daily newspaper published in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and serves as the county's legal organ. The newspaper is owned by Times-Journal Inc. and prints Wednesday and Sunday each week.